#4-2020 Close to Home- Armstead School

#4-2020  "Close to Home"   Armstead School


Armstead was named for Henry Armstead who came to the area in 1905 to promote the Silver Fisher Mine near Polaris.  (The Montana Standard, Butte Montana  20 September 1965, page 19)


Located in Armstead was a railroad junction, of the Gilmore and Pittsburg Railroad running from Salmon to Armstead and the Oregon Short Line that later became the Union Pacific.  Because of the railroad junction, it became a central location to ship cattle by railroad.  The cattle arrived either on a train from Idaho or were trailed to the Stockyards from ranches in Beaverhead County.

Clark Canyon Dam was built on the Beaverhead River, south of Dillon, and was competed in 1964.  The dam is about 20 miles from Dillon, the hometown of my family.

After the dam was completed, Hap Hawkins lake created behind the dam buried the small town of Armstead.  The land on which Armstead sat was purchased by the Bureau of Reclamation and buildings were removed or razed.  There was school, post office, bar and several businesses along with homes.

An article in The MIssoulian reported that Armstead had not been seen for decades but with 3 years of drought, Armstead had resurfaced. (The Missoulian (Missoula, MT) 1 December 2002, page 41)

Don Shaffner

2002

82 years old

Labor Day weekend 2002

While visiting Dad, during Labor Day weekend of 2002, we drove to Armstead.  The town that had been buried in 1964!  We went to Red Rock and drove on the original highway to Armstead.  Since the water was low after 3 years of drought, the road was passable.  The original road, still paved with yellow lines down the center, was still passable after 38 years of being under water.  Give or take a year or two after the completion of the dam, the road has been under the lake.  In a couple of places the sides & shoulders of the road had washed away, but not bad.  We drove all the way to Armstead!  Amazing!  Even the railroad bed was still visible.

While I remembered Armstead as a town and the Buffalo Bar, Dad stood on the steps of the school and pointed out landmarks from the foundations.  Over there, he said, lived the people with the Shetland ponies.  As a veterinarian he had to treat those ponies and he hated Shetland ponies—if they don’t kick you, they will bite you!  He pointed out where the Buffalo Bar stood and told stories of the history of the bar.  It was a center point of the town to gather; lots of cattle were bought and sold at the bar and lots of transactions occurred over whiskey.  He pointed out where the stockyards was located.  As a veterinarian he had to write health inspections for cattle loading on the train.  The cattle were shipped to Chicago, Kansas City, St. Paul and various other places.

Dad told the story of a rancher who had trailed his cattle to the stockyards and then gone to the Buffalo and enjoyed whiskey.  The next morning he went to load his cattle on the train and they were gone.  Apparently another man, who probably had too much whiskey, load the wrong pen of cattle on a train.  Calls were made, the train was stopped and returned.  Cattle unloaded and the correct cattle were loaded!  From the stories Dad told, I would imagine that happened more than once!  

The amazing thing about getting the train stopped and turned around; it was done in the days before cell phones!  

#3 - 2020 Long Line

#3-2020. Long Line.  52 Ancestors in a Year

In the western heritage culture, the term long line might refer to the length of a rein on a team of horses.

Combine on Bob Hayden-Colfax, Washington

30 head team hooked

My mother, Helen Lloyd, was raised in Waitsburg, Washington.  Farming in that area and Palouse Hills of eastern Washington was done with teams of horses or mules.  The hills were steep, the soil was great and wheat was the crop.  

Combining on McKinney Land

32 head team hooked

Plowing on McKinney Land

These pictures are from Helen’s collection, but not from her family farm. 

Can you imagine the daily chore of caring for this many horses in the team?  Daily chores of feeding and watering the team, in the morning, at noon and at night.  At noon, the dream was team was unhooked and watered and then re-hooked to the equipment.  If you count the horses or mules in the team, there are  25-33 head.  (And they are hard to count in the picture!). And don't forget that the men that worked the teams and helped with harvest also had to be fed!  That is another story!

A team took a long line  of leather rein from the teamster driving the team to the lead team.

At Fort Walla Walla Museum, in Walla Walla, Washington, there is an excellent life size display of a team hooked to a combine.  It was one of my Dad’s favorite displays.  He loved teams and grew up in the era of using teams to feed cattle as well as put up hay.  On a trip there Dad was like a kid in a candy store explaining to me all the details of the workings of such a large team, from the lead team to the wheel team and all points in between.  Oh how I wished I had an iPhone to have recorded his explanations!  

Don Shaffner viewing and explaining the team!  

A replica of the driver, thick long lines in his hands.  

The driver of the team even had a can of pebbles next to his seat.  That was for an occasional rock thrown at a horse to “giddy up”!  Sometimes the long line wasn’t an effective method to encourage a horse to “step up”.  

An explanation and example of how a team was hitched with "long lines".

#2-2020. Favorite Photo. 52 Ancestors in a Year

#2-2020. Favorite Photo.  52 Ancestors in a Year

As the recipient & keeper of many, if not hundreds of family photos, it was very hard to choose just one favorite photo.  So I chose 2 related photos.

Yes, I really do have lots of family photos and luckily most are identified.  Thanks to my grandfather, John F. Shaffner and my cousin, Donnee Shaffner Stibal, most are identified in the Shaffner family line. 

My mother, Helen Lloyd's family also had many family pictures and most are labeled.  In both sets of inherited collections there those unlabeled ones that I am always looking for clues on.

This is picture is favorite because it is the only picture I have of my great great grandmother, Margaret Maria Fetter Shaffner.  The plus to the picture is her holding Walter Ruskin Shaffner, the youngest brother of my grandfather.   

Margaret was born in Lancaster, Pennsylvania in 1820 and died 10 November 1903 in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania at 83 years of age.  

Walter Ruskin Shaffner was born 7 September 1899 and his mother died 17 November, 1899.

I believe the picture would have been taken about 1900-1902.  

Margaret Maria Fetter Shaffner, daughter of Jacob George Fetter III & Margaret Maria Ernest (or Ermet) married Gabriel Shaffner in 1845 in Pennsylvania.  Their son, John Martin Shaffner, born 15 July 1855 married Elizabeth Deborah Fletcher in 16 September 1880 in Whitesville, New York.

I suspect that Margaret helped out raising Walter Ruskin until his father remarried.  

John M. Shaffner married Emma Reamer, but she did not like his children.  The younger children all went to live with older siblings. 

Walter Ruskin Shaffner went to live with his sister, Cecelia and her husband, Richard Daggett in Tioga County, Pennsylvania.  He died December 1916 at the age of 16.  Probably from appendicitis, but the death certificate said acute indigestion.   

His older brother, John F. Shaffner, intended to bring him to Montana. He always regretted that and named his 2nd son, Walter.

This is the Shaffner Family Bible that my grandfather, John F. Shaffner,  took from his Pennsylvania home after his mother died.  Emma was not happy about that according to Grandpa.  But what a treasure it is.  

Included in the Bible was Margaret's family history which I believe are in her handwriting due to the old style of cursive script.

Don Shaffner, my father, holding the Shaffner Family Bible